


(glitter on the west streets) silver over everything

by SafelyCapricious



Series: ain't no grave can hold my body down [22]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Harem fic, Humor, Marriage Law Challenge, malicious compliance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:41:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27158101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: He shudders and ducks his head and she wonders why people keep not-crying at her. She’s no better at dealing with the almost-crying as she is dealing with actual crying. And there’s no way to give a “there there” from across a desk without coming off as a condescending asshole.She floats another glass of fire whisky his way, and is relieved when he takes it and downs it.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Blaise Zabini, Hermione Granger & Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger & Draco Malfoy & Theodore Nott & Blaise Zabini & Pansy Parkinson, Hermione Granger & Pansy Parkinson, Hermione Granger & Theodore Nott
Series: ain't no grave can hold my body down [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950148
Comments: 34
Kudos: 138





	(glitter on the west streets) silver over everything

**Author's Note:**

> TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS 
> 
> FOR FUCKS SAKE DON'T BE A DICK LIKE JKR
> 
> FICTOBER HASN'T WON YET YOU GUYS BUT IT IS TRYING TO KILL ME THIS IS DAY 22 AND PROMPT IS TOWER
> 
> also title is from Heads Will Roll by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
> 
> I love this song
> 
> I wanted this to be longer, but I want sleep more. Might be a second part. If there is a second part it might get shippy.

Hermione contemplates the slumped figure on the other side of her desk.

He’s the ninth now, to come to her for help. She’s starting to think she’s getting a reputation. Except she’s not sure how she could be -- she’s having trouble wrapping her head around Slytherins telling each other to come to her if they need assistance with the stupidness of the new law. Maybe it’s just the fact that she made her opposition of the law so very clear, that they’re just looking for a sympathetic shoulder?

Except no, they’ve all asked for help, eventually.

She’d refused to help two of the eight -- Avery and Goyle. But she’d tried to help the other six. Zabini’s solution was unlikely to work for anyone else. And honestly it had been sheer luck that she’d been able to help Flit, Pucey, and Montague. But she hadn’t been able to offer anything to Parkinson or Malfoy but the empty promise to see what she could do. And she hadn’t expected to be able to help them, really.

Except now with Nott here -- collapsed in front of her, having the saddest story she’s heard so far to be honest -- she’s starting to have an evil, terrible, amazing idea.

“I just don’t understand,” he’s saying -- a refrain she’s heard too many times, “how such a...how this _law_ could have actually been passed.”

“You’re just glad they didn’t go with their first draft,” she says, dryly, flicking her fingers to send a full glass of fire whisky to float in the air by his right hand.

He’s going to ask -- they always do -- and once he thinks through the implications of the first draft he’s going to need a drink.

He takes the glass gingerly, like he can see a trap closing around him, but he still asks, voice hoarse and maybe he just wants a distraction. “What was in the first draft?”

“Couples were given a month to marry, not the six months you have now. Couples had to be opposite sex, with a child needing to be produced within three years. If no child was produced both individuals would be tested for fertility and _assigned_ someone with a better chance of successfully impregnating or being impregnated. Oh, and it was for _all_ purebloods of childbearing age, and they would’ve had to marry a muggleborn.”

Some days, as she watches him turn almost translucent with horror, she wonders if not campaigning the changes she had would have actually been better. If the logistical nightmare of all of the purebloods being required to marry, go to Azkaban or lose their wands, when the muggleborns weren’t under the same threat would’ve actually ended the whole thing far quicker.

Most of the time she knows it likely wouldn’t have -- that the easier step of forcing the muggleborns to marry as well would’ve likely followed.

Still, she’d campaigned for a full year -- had only gotten six months. Had campaigned for only actual Death Eaters -- those with the mark -- to be required to go through with it, had only gotten those with a Death Eater in the immediate family. She had managed to remove the child requirement, and that of the couples being the opposite sex -- which was not nothing, and she would never feel bad about removing state sanctioned rape -- as any forced intercourse would have to be. She’d also been able to expand the acceptable marriages to include anyone raised muggle, regardless of actual blood status, including actual muggles. Which at least meant there were some options.

Not that anyone seemed to be having much luck.

She wishes she’d managed to get them to throw the whole thing out. But she hadn’t.And now here they were, five months in, with former classmates having nervous breakdowns on her couch.

She’d even been willing to try to help Goyle and Avery, at first.

And in Goyle’s defense, it is still possible he doesn’t realize that Mudblood is a slur and not the actual appropriate way to describe muggleborns -- and maybe if he’d caught her in a slightly better mood she would’ve bothered to explain. But he didn’t, and she didn’t, and so he’d been summarily kicked out.

Avery, on the other hand, had caused her to send a warning to the Ministry as soon as he’d left. Because he’d come to her to ask her where best to _buy_ a muggle bride, and just how young did they start breeding and -- And so he’d had to go and spend some time in St. Mungo’s and she’d had to talk to the Aurors.

Pucey, Flint and Montague had been lucky, and also very polite when they’d come to her, in that she had recently found out about crushes that three of her acquaintances had -- all three raised muggle enough to count. And three blind dates later, they were happily sorted. The Flint-Wood wedding had actually been just the weekend before and Hermione had maybe cried a little -- regardless of how stupid the law that had brought them there was.

The others at least had tried before coming to her.

Zabini had even gotten into the pre-wedding paperwork stage -- at which point his bride to be read the prenup agreement and promptly bailed. (Hermione had seen the agreement, when Zabini had been slightly toasted in the chair on the other side of her desk and was baffled. The agreement would’ve allowed someone to fully support a family of four for about a hundred years -- so as far as she was concerned Zabini had probably escaped a disaster waiting to happen.)

However, since the Death Eater in his family tree was a step father he’d had very little contact with, she’d sent him with the appropriate paperwork to file with the Ministry to have an exemption made. Which was him nicely sorted. Probably. She hadn’t heard about it yet, if it failed.

Parkinson and Malfoy had both turned to the muggle world -- but five months wasn’t quite long enough time to date before proposing -- especially when the ministry hadn’t made any extra allowances or loopholes for informing any potential spouses about magic. The law continued to be that you couldn’t tell muggles about magic unless they were in your immediate family -- so it would have to be a post marriage conversation, which made trying to explain the need to rush the marriage problematic.

(To the credit of the fellow Malfoy had been dating, it sounded like he might’ve been up for it -- unfortunately same sex marriage wasn’t legal in muggle Britain -- Hermione was hoping that was a yet, but it didn’t much help Malfoy now.)

To be honest, Hermione was especially furious with the ministry when she’d asked both of them, idly, if they’d loved the muggles and Parkinson had responded with a shrug and a look out of red rimmed eyes and “Hardly matters now does it? I like him too much to trap him and...the magical world wouldn’t treat him well anyways, would it?” Malfoy’s quiet “I think I could have,” broke her heart just as thoroughly.

(And maybe this was where she’d actually started to consider her horrible, awful, no good, amazing plan -- because the whole point of the stupid marriage law was, theoretically, to make the families of death eaters see muggles and muggleborns as _people_ , and they obviously did and that should’ve counted for something. But it didn’t and they could still end up in Azkaban anyways.)

But it was probably Nott’s story that is the worst.

“I knew he didn’t want to get married before,” he says, sitting with his fingers tangled together so hard she’s worried he’s going to injure himself, “I just thought -- I thought he -- I loved -- to keep me out of Azkaban, you know? Even if, even if he did disagree with the institution of marriage, I thought…”

He takes a long shuddering breath and seems to force himself to let go of his hands, gripping the arms of the chair instead. “He asked me if I was _serious_ and said...said that if I didn’t understand where he was coming from then we should probably see other people. As if -- as if I was just bringing it up to cause an argument and not --”

He shudders and ducks his head and she wonders why people keep not-crying at her. She’s no better at dealing with the almost-crying as she is dealing with actual crying. And there’s no way to give a “there there” from across a desk without coming off as a condescending asshole.

She floats another glass of fire whisky his way, and is relieved when he takes it and downs it.

As she politely gives him a few moments to get himself under control, she also wonders if there’s a polite way to ask what she’s about to ask. But, well, he did come to her. And they may not have been friends in school, really, but they’d shared classes for sixish and a half years and so he had to know she wasn’t much good at...at being polite.

“So,” she starts, once he’s finished the third glass she’s provided him and doesn’t appear to be shaking quite as badly. “I don’t know if I can help you, but I can try. But I do need to know. Just Wizards -- or, well, men? Or women too, Nott?”

He grimaces and seems to be trying to find some answer on her face -- maybe worried she’s going to judge him? But he must find something because after a long moment he says. “I don’t...male or female doesn’t matter, but I don’t... _like_ most people.”

“Ah,” she says, and leans back in her chair, because that might make her plan a little harder. Not impossible, of course, she thinks they can pull it off even if he’d only been into Wizards, but she’d hoped to keep the lying to a minimum.

She’d been a little surprised at how, well, open the Slytherins had been in their sexualities -- she hadn’t yet figured out if it was actually a Slytherin thing, or a Pureblood thing -- or just a generation that had survived the war thing, or a desperation thing, and she hadn’t much wanted to ask.

Alright, she’d asked Luna -- but she was taking her answer with a grain of salt. Mainly because she wasn’t entirely sure what Lazaratiens Lizards had to do with anything -- or even what, exactly, they were (or if they were).

“Well,” she tries again, and takes a sip from her own glass -- apple juice, because it looks similar to whisky and therefore makes the clientele feel better like she’s joining them but also she’s not going to drink at work. Even if, since quitting the Ministry and opening her own Law Firm she’s her own boss and could get away with it. “How do you feel about Parkinson, or Malfoy?”

“Erm,” he says, and blinks at her -- and yes, maybe he should also be having something other than fire whiskey from here on out. “I’m pretty sure marrying them won’t -- the law is for me to marry someone muggle raised, I thought?”

She shrugs and with a muttered spell fills his glass with water. “It is. But I was considering something and...yes or no?”

“Er, yes?” he asks, and she shrugs and supposes that’s the best she’s going to get.

Yeah, she can work with this. And the Ministry is going to _hate_ it...which is definitely a positive.

“Okay, I need to sort a few things out, but why don’t you come back in, lets say a weeks time at 10 am?” She says, flipping through her calendar. “If that ends up not being enough time for me to sort things out, I’ll owl you.”

“Alright,” he says, and downs his water, before standing and offering her a hand. “Thank you Granger, for -- even if you aren’t able to come up with anything. Just...thank you.”

“We’ll keep you out of Azkaban,” she promises, feeling fairly confident about her awful and amazing plan.

***

“What are you doing here?” Draco asks as soon as the administrative assistant shows him into the conference room. Pansy had just narrowed her eyes when she’d come in and seen him, and then tried to stare him into breaking silence first.

Theo shrugs. “I have an appointment.”

“So do I,” Pansy snaps, eyes still narrowed, and Theo looks away from her least he draw her ire.

Draco shifts his weight and crosses his arms. “Me too.”

They both start to say something else, speaking over each other and then scowl -- ah, he thinks they’re still not quite over that breakup then. He guesses he shouldn’t be surprised about it -- he knows the other houses thought they weren’t sincere, but anyone in Slytherin knew how much the two actually cared for each other. Not that it mattered. They both had betrothals since before they’d been weened.

Not that those mattered either, these days, what with the law making that sort of thing obsolete.

Draco turns away and crosses his arms, and Theo tries to figure out what could be going on. Granger _had_ asked about his opinion about Draco and Pansy, after he’d figuratively opened his chest and bled all over her carpet. And he considers himself quite smart -- coming in second only to Granger in the number of NEWTs managed -- but he cannot figure out how she thinks she can come up with a solution to the law with three pureblood Death Eater Adjacent individuals. Or, well, Death Eater proper in Draco’s case, he supposes.

“Oh good,” Granger says, coming through a side door he hadn’t even noticed, “You’re all here.” Blaise trails in behind her -- scowl wrinkling his brow. Given how laidback he normally is, Theo knows he’s gotten bad news -- he’s just not sure what it is. Or why they’re all here.

“I don’t think any introductions are needed, right?” she says, smiling at them and rocking back on her heels slightly.

Theo narrows his eyes when he realizes that she’s nervous. Oh no, that does not bode well for them.

“We’ve all seen each other in nappies, Granger -- well, aside from you,” Pansy says, when it seems like no one else is planning to speak and Granger hasn’t just forged ahead anyways.

“Great,” she says, and then takes another beat too long to speak.

“Well, get on with it,” Draco says, face pinched, standing looking all faux casual against the wall now. “Tell us you can’t help and send us on our merry way -- if I only have seventeen days before I lose my magic I’d like to go out with a bang.”

“Oh,” Granger says and looks surprised that he would’ve come to that conclusion. “Oh no, I’m sorry -- I mean, if you don’t like the plan then maybe but -- I have a plan.”

Theo can feel some of the tension leak from his shoulders. Granger has a plan. If Granger has a plan then they’re going to be fine. Probably. She kept Potter alive for seven years, didn’t she? She’s good at plans.

He watches the rest of his housemates also relax, even as he thinks they’re trying not to be obvious about it.

“Right,” she says, and looks at of them for a moment before straightening her spine even more -- and now Theo is getting nervous, anything that makes the poster child for Gryffindor Bravery feel like she needs to prepare herself is probably going to be messy.

He’s trying to decide if he’d be willing to kill to avoid the stupid law -- or maybe she’ll propose them all running away somewhere? That seems like the sort of unpalatable thing she’d worry they wouldn’t accept. He’s hoping it’s the running away, he really doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

“We’re going to all get married, to each other, all of us,” she says, and Theo knows his jaw drops.

“I think there are easier ways to feed your Slytherin fetish, Granger,” Blaise drawls after a moment of complete silence, eyebrow arched.

Granger scoffs at them. “Look, the law is awful -- we all know that -- and for the most part it’s annoyingly free of loopholes. However, group marriages, as I am sure you all know, are perfectly legal in the magical world -- and the law does not specify that the marriage must be only a duo. Ergo, we’re going to try something that we muggles call malicious compliance. We’ll all be married, which means you’ll all be married to me -- and as a muggleborn I most certainly fulfill the requirements of your spouse.”

“What do you get out of it, Granger?” Draco asks, no longer leaning against the wall but now leaning against the table -- Theo thinks his hands might be shaking a little.

Granger’s smile is practically Slytherin as it stretches across her face, “I get to spit in the Ministry’s eye, obviously,” and Theo realizes, abruptly, that they’re really going to do this.

Well.

Okay.

***

“I can’t believe that...that this worked,” Parkinson says, sounding shell shocked.

Hermione rolls her eyes. She thinks it’s almost cute they’re doubting her -- but then she’s found that people have a very warped perception of who she is. She blames Rita Skeeter.

(To be fair, she’d blame Rita Skeeter for a red traffic light.)

“I don’t know why you think I wouldn’t have been sure it would work, I do have a magical law degree you know,” she points out, dryly, while the group of their husbands all stare in shock at their copies of the marriage contract.

She gives them a moment — and ignores the fact that she thinks Parkinson looks like she needs a hug — before clapping her hands together. “Alright husbands, wife — who has the biggest house that is least likely to kill me?”

Malfoy trips, even thought they’re standing still, and catches himself on Zabini’s shoulder. “Wha — what?”

“We have to all live together,” she points out — she’s fairly sure she’d gone over this, but then, they’d been a bit surprised and a lot scared and, apparently, hadn’t entirely believed it would work. Ah, well. “My flat is very small,” she says carefully, “So we can’t stay there, and I know some of the old pureblood mansions have safeguards against muggleborns so, who has a house that won’t like lock me in a tower to starve once it registers my presence?”

The four of them exchange glances quickly.

“Erm,” Nott says, shuffling his feet, “probably mine, but I’m going to have to — we’ll just go and clean some things out while you and Pansy get your stuff, shall we?” And then he’s grabbing the other two and appareting away with a crack.

Hermione snickers and is surprised when a moment later Parkinson echos the sound.

“I bet you it’s like twenty five percent stuff that might hurt you and like seventy five percent cleaning,” Parkinson says with a twist of her lips.

Hermione considers. “I’ll take that bet — I think forty percent things that might hurt me, forty percent cleaning and twenty percent hiding porn.”

They have to hold each other up when the laughter makes their knees weak.

***

“We should’ve seen this coming,” Ron says mournfully, clutching a cushion to his chest as he stares at her sadly. “It’s been too long since we’ve done anything stupid that she felt like she needed to make up for it.”

Hermione snorts and lowers another sugar cube into her tea. Normally Harry makes a lovely pot, but he was so busy staring at her in horror that he’d rather let it over steep and she was having trouble making it remotely drinkable.

“Married?” Neville squeaks for the nth time. It’s the only word he’s managed since she finished telling her story and she wonders if she broke him.

“Yes, Neville, married,” she says, calmly — reaching out and moving a cup under the spout of the teapot that Harry is about to pour on the table. “To Malfoy, Nott, Parkinson, and Zabini.”

“Did you…did you do that in alphabetical order on purpose?” Ron asks — she’s very impressed. He’s still forming full sentences, unlike Neville who can only say ‘married?’ and Harry who hasn’t said _anything_ since she’s told them.

“We were thinking of changing our last names to Gramanokinini,” she says after another long moment of silence, “what do you think?”

“No,” Harry finally says, and her grin broadens, “that name is awful, you can’t do that to — don’t do that.”

“Married?” Neville squeaks again, and Hermione gives up and tries to take another sip of her tea.

**Author's Note:**

> I am too lazy to link my tumblr atm, but you can either find me via SafelyCapricious (non writing tumblr) or CapriciousWrites (writing tumblr)
> 
> Love love love, pls enjoy


End file.
